David Ignatow Quotes

• I wish I understood the beauty
  in leaves falling. To whom
  are we beautiful
  as we go?

  David Ignatow

  Beautiful, Fall, Wish

  David Ignatow (2011). “Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934–1994”, p.72, Wesleyan University Press

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• If flowers want to grow right out of the concrete sidewalk cracks I'm going to bend down to smell them.

  David Ignatow

  Flower, Smell, Cracks

  "Poems, 1934-1969".

  9 Copy quote

• I like rust on a nail, fog on a mountain. Clouds hide stars, rooms have doors, eyes close, and the same words that began love end it with changed emphasis.

  David Ignatow

  Stars, Eye, Clouds

  David Ignatow (2011). “Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934–1994”, p.57, Wesleyan University Press

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• I should be content
  to look at a mountain
  for what it is
  and not as a comment on my life.

  David Ignatow

  Mountain, Looks, Should

  David Ignatow (2011). “Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934–1994”, p.45, Wesleyan University Press

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• One leaf left on a branch and not a sound of sadness or despair. One leaf left on a branch and no unhappiness. One leaf left all by itself in the air and it does not speak of loneliness or death. One leaf and it spends itself in swaying mildly in the breeze.

  David Ignatow

  Loneliness, Sadness, Winter

  David Ignatow (2011). “Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934–1994”, p.124, Wesleyan University Press

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• One can fall in love as often as a tree grows leaves. It is perfectly natural but not free of guilt and complications, unless one takes oneself to be a leaf.

  David Ignatow

  Falling In Love, Tree, Guilt

  8 Copy quote

• The burden of living one’s own life is experiencing sensations that no one else can share.

  David Ignatow

  Life Is, Burden, Share

  David Ignatow, Ralph J. Mills (1980). “Open between us”, Univ of Michigan Pr

  7 Copy quote

• There are times when I can find myself in a book, too, for two or three hours. But afterward I have such an urge to go out and reach for other people. Very often they're not around. There's also a metaphysical loneliness. We all feel it. The burden of living one's own life is experiencing sensations that no one else can share. You take a step in a house, you start moving around the house, no one else moves with you. You're walking by yourself.

  David Ignatow

  Loneliness, Moving, Book

  David Ignatow, Ralph J. Mills (1980). “Open between us”, Univ of Michigan Pr

  8 Copy quote

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